Councilmen get combative with Pre-K 4 SA CEO at briefing

Pre-K 4 SA CEO Sarah Baray makes a presentation Wednesday May 9, 2018 to the San Antonio city council about the 2019 annual budget. The $47.3 million budget is funded by a 1/8th cent sales tax. Pre-K 4 SA is a full-day prekindergarten program that also offers free afterschool care until 6:00 p.m. less

Pre-K 4 SA CEO Sarah Baray makes a presentation Wednesday May 9, 2018 to the San Antonio city council about the 2019 annual budget. The $47.3 million budget is funded by a 1/8th cent sales tax. Pre-K 4 SA is a ... more

Photo: JOHN DAVENPORT, STAFF / San Antonio Express-News

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Pre-K 4 SA CEO Sarah Baray makes a presentation Wednesday May 9, 2018 to the San Antonio city council about the 2019 annual budget. The $47.3 million budget is funded by a 1/8th cent sales tax. Pre-K 4 SA is a full-day prekindergarten program that also offers free afterschool care until 6:00 p.m. less

Pre-K 4 SA CEO Sarah Baray makes a presentation Wednesday May 9, 2018 to the San Antonio city council about the 2019 annual budget. The $47.3 million budget is funded by a 1/8th cent sales tax. Pre-K 4 SA is a ... more

Photo: JOHN DAVENPORT, STAFF / San Antonio Express-News

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Pre-K 4 SA CEO Sarah Baray (at lectern) makes a presentation Wednesday May 9, 2018 to the San Antonio city council about the 2019 annual budget. The $47.3 million budget is funded by a 1/8th cent sales tax. Pre-K 4 SA is a full-day prekindergarten program that also offers free afterschool care until 6:00 p.m. less

Pre-K 4 SA CEO Sarah Baray (at lectern) makes a presentation Wednesday May 9, 2018 to the San Antonio city council about the 2019 annual budget. The $47.3 million budget is funded by a 1/8th cent sales tax. ... more

Photo: JOHN DAVENPORT, STAFF / San Antonio Express-News

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San Antonio City Manager City Sheryl Sculley speaks about the Pre-K 4 SA program Wednesday May 9, 2018 to the San Antonio city council about the 2019 annual budget. The $47.3 million budget is funded by a 1/8th cent sales tax. Pre-K 4 SA is a full-day prekindergarten program that also offers free afterschool care until 6:00 p.m. less

San Antonio City Manager City Sheryl Sculley speaks about the Pre-K 4 SA program Wednesday May 9, 2018 to the San Antonio city council about the 2019 annual budget. The $47.3 million budget is funded by a 1/8th ... more

Photo: JOHN DAVENPORT, STAFF / San Antonio Express-News

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San Antonio City Manager City Sheryl Sculley (right) speaks about the Pre-K 4 SA program Wednesday May 9, 2018 to the San Antonio city council about the 2019 annual budget. The $47.3 million budget is funded by a 1/8th cent sales tax. Pre-K 4 SA is a full-day prekindergarten program that also offers free afterschool care until 6:00 p.m. less

San Antonio City Manager City Sheryl Sculley (right) speaks about the Pre-K 4 SA program Wednesday May 9, 2018 to the San Antonio city council about the 2019 annual budget. The $47.3 million budget is funded by ... more

Photo: JOHN DAVENPORT, STAFF / San Antonio Express-News

Councilmen get combative with Pre-K 4 SA CEO at briefing

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The majority of the City Council on Wednesday heaped praise upon Sarah Baray, the CEO of Pre-K 4 SA, after her presentation on the program, now wrapping up its fifth year of educating 4-year-olds.

But not everyone was thrilled with the presentation. Baray faced some pushback from frequent critics, Councilmen Clayton Perry and Greg Brockhouse.

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Perry signaled some disdain for the program through a series of questions about why the program gives away so much grant funding. He also asked whether it could continue on grants alone — which it generally doesn’t seek — if voters decided in 2020 not to renew the 1/8-cent sales tax that provides the bulk of annual funding for Pre-K 4 SA.

Pre-K 4 SA’s 2019 fiscal year budget shows $47.3 million in revenues, $36.4 million of which comes from local sales tax, approved by voters in 2012.

Baray told Perry that the program’s board of directors, composed of City Council appointees, have opted not to seek grants because it would create competition for funds among local school districts and potentially take money from them. So when they do seek grants, it’s in partnership with the local independent school districts with whom Pre-K 4 SA works.

“If this doesn’t get voted (on) and approved at the next voting trap, if you will, do you think we would have that ability to raise funds through grants?” Perry asked.

“I doubt it,” Baray replied, noting that without a set funding source, parents would be less likely to send their children to the program, and teachers would be less likely to work there if they weren’t sure whether their salaries could be paid.

And the grants that Pre-K 4 SA gives help plug funding gaps in local school systems, she told the council. As is often the case, she said, school districts facing revenue shortages cut from early-childhood education first.

Calling herself a straight shooter, Baray said that the work that her program does goes beyond teaching 4-year-olds. It also conducts long-term training with teachers from around the city in an effort to strengthen early education across the San Antonio region.

She and City Manager Sheryl Sculley both cast the program’s teachers as the best in San Antonio, which drew an angry diatribe from Councilman Greg Brockhouse. His wife teaches in the public school system and he asserted that there are top-notch teachers across the city.

Baray responded that there are excellent teachers around the area but insisted that data show Pre-K 4 SA’s teachers are performing at the highest levels. Brockhouse punched back, saying that she did exactly what he’d asked her not to do in her response.

That exchange drew in Councilman Manny Pelaez, a lawyer, who then fired off a series of questions at Baray, much like a trial attorney redirecting a line of questioning. He asked her if she’d ever suggested her program’s teachers were smarter, or cared more.

Baray said she hadn’t, and that she was explaining that her teachers are afforded the training and tools that allow them to perform at the levels they do.

Brockhouse said there would be a time in the future — when it’s time for voters to decide whether to renew the sales tax that funds the program — whether it performs at a level higher than its school-district counterparts.

Baray said she was ready, and that Pre-K 4 SA is preparing the next generation of San Antonio’s workforce.